Why Career Tests Don't Work

With the glut of free online career tests, it would be easy to get excited about the seemingly magical results they seek to provide to a persons career search.

But do they work?
One of the attractions of them is that they can be fun to complete and provide presumably quick answers for someone seeking career change advice.

However there are problems on a number of fronts when a person completes one of these assessments.

Results of such tests provide a list of careers* that supposedly suit a person's personality type and thereby assist them in finding a career that suits them.

* This page information refers only to career tests that provide a list of careers or job types with the results of the test.
Other assessments which only provide general information about personality type or a person's motivations and do not provide a list of job types may be useful.

As a career counselor who has in the past used a number of these instruments with clients, experience has now led me away from using them because: